Vengeance: DS&JS, TRO3057, XTRO Periphery, TRO Prototypes
Ahh the Vengeance. The fastest way to end an argument in Aerotech is to mention the Vengeance. The Godwin of spaceflight. Deeply unbalancing it still causes mental nightmares to this day. So what is the Vengeance and why do we care?
The history of the Vengeance has always been somewhat confused. Even the earliest fluff described what it was and how it was used rather than where it came from. This led to all sorts of confusion. For example it was regularly associated with the Federated Suns despite never being built there, until it was retconned so that it was. It was associated with the Star League, despite being introduced in 2782, until it was retconned to 2682. Perception bending reality?
In any case, as it currently stands the Vengeance was first introduced in 2682, thirty-five years after the Titan. The timing of the date retcon caused an interesting situation of the Vengeance serving the Houses in their 2765 Field Reports but not the Star League. The Vengeance would certainly have been available to the Star League and would have made a useful point defence carrier relying on SLDF WarShips for stores. At the same time you can make an argument that they were not needed. More on that later. The main point here is that Vengeances were not built in the Hegemony, rather in the Successor States by Salvatore Inc. (Layover), Tomori Trans Industrial (Chatham), and Kallon Weapon Industries (Loyalty). These three factories would churn out Vengeances for years with only Salvatore Inc. being flattened in the Second Succession War.
In 3056 Kallon introduced a new variant. This dropped 400 tons and 40 tons of oh so precious cargo and 220 tons of fuel for modernised guns. The Combine ships at Tomori did not follow suit and frankly I can’t blame them. By the 3050s Vengeances are considered “rare”. Mercenary captains are able to charge exorbitant rates and more are in the hands of state actors.
The Jihad was a busy time for the Vengeance. In 3076 Salvatore Inc. had rebuilt its Vengeance line in conjunction with Kallon, naturally building the 3056 variant. Around 3080 a heavily customised Vengance 2682 began touring the Magistracy as the private flagship of the Ebon Magistrate. It was a bit of a mystery where this ship came from until a production variant showed up in 3083. Reverse engineered by Earthwerks Ltd. (Ares) the Vengeance DC reduced the fighter bays to a single wing in exchange for Piranhas, LRMs and AMS. This would go on to be the Canopian Magistracy and Capellan Confederation’s default heavy assault DropShip.
So what do we get with a Vengeance? Basically you get 40 aerospace fighters and a trio of small craft. Nothing else really matters. Contrary to reputation the Vengeance actually does have a useful fuel load. What it lacks is the cargo bays for armour and ammunition. It can manage multiple peaceful patrols or a single heavy combat strike. For ongoing combat operations the Vengeance desperately needs supporting cargo DropShips. This has the potential to come back and bite it hard.
DropShips and JumpShips goes into extensive detail about the internal structure of the Vengeance. Basically it is a huge cargo bay running up the skyscraper structure of the DropShip with light bracing walls down the middle and ASF bays down the sides. The stubby structures on the sides are launch and recovery bays. The position of the engine means that it must be shut down while recovering fighters.
Compared to the well balanced Titan I keep coming back to the idea of Vengeances as defensive platforms. They have to sit close to supply assets and have a low sortie rate. Yet they can manage CAP and patrol operations well enough. In the Vengeance the Hegemony gave the Great Houses a strong carrier with very limited offensive capabilities. Only the destruction of the Succession Wars moved it into an offensive position.
In the post Succession War world the Vengeance becomes annoying. There is a huge gap in capability between it and the Leopard CV, the only other carrier DropShip for most nations. More problematic, 40 ASF are too many for balanced gaming. It is like bringing a battalion to a tabletop game. It is too unwieldy for a playable game. And this is at a time when WarShips are being removed for bringing battalion level firepower to games.
The Vengeance DC and Danai Centrella differ from the earlier Vengeances by sacrificing 22 fighters for weapons. The conventional weapons are rearranged; they gain sub capital missiles, infantry, more cargo, and a small NCSS. They differ from each other with the Danai Centrella using Enhanced LRMs. As assault platforms they are about equal to an Overlord A3. They get some nice initiative and spotting bonuses I guess.
Using a Vengeance is pretty simple. The big carrier variants dump their fighters then run. Keep the stern to the target because that is where all the big guns are. The DC reverses this because its big weapons are forward. Indeed it wants to get about 20 hexes away from any fighter battle so it can use its Piranhas. While it has better armour, this does expose it to bum rushes.
Killing a Vengeance is a question of catching it. The DC has to get that little bit too close and is a little bit too slow to escape in a hurry if it needs to. In theory the carriers are able to stand off. Mind you, do it right and you can get the Vengeance running and force it to leave its fighters far behind.